Adobe Photoshop Touch for Honeycomb review

Today, Honeycomb users were gifted by Adobe with Photoshop Touch, Adobe’s most fully fledged foray into mobile Photoshop to date. Released exclusively for Honeycomb 3.1+ devices until the iOS release in early 2012, Photoshop Touch offers Adobe Photoshop Elements type functionality for your tablet, and having spent half an hour swiping, dragging and layering – we can confirm it’s pretty freaking cool.

Why do I want it?

Selection tools, brushes, levels, Photoshop Touch really does offer some great imaging functionality for your tablet. You can edit or manipulate photos, create a work of art from scratch or even composite multiple images across layers.

Novice users rejoice

While all these advanced options may turn off users unfamiliar to the desktop counterpart, Adobe have included some extremely comprehensive tutorials which walk you through a number of techniques, step by step, with on screen instructions. Not only is this a great way to learn how to use Photoshop Touch, but also helps users understand the fundamentals of the fully fledged version as well.

The user-interface

Delving into the UI and each side of the screen is occupied by a panel except for the bottom. The left panel offers a tool bar where you can find your selection tools, brushes, smudge tools etc. At the top sit some context specific options as well as adjustments and effects while on the right is the layers panel.

First 15 minutes

In the first 15 minutes of tinkering with the Photoshop Touch, we were able to affix a cup to a wall as you can see by taking two pictures on our tablet’s camera and compositing them using layers and the selection tool. The fact we did this with no tutorials suggests current Photoshopers will find the UI instantly familiar, so Adobe should be commended for making the app so accessible.

Price

Photoshop Touch doesn’t come cheap. We were charged £8.46 despite the app being advertised for £6.99. We’re as of yet unclear who’s to blame for this UK pricing miscommunication and we’re looking into it. That aside, with Photoshop Elements priced at £79 and some very comparable functionality depending on what you need it for, Photoshop Touch is as premium an app as the pricing suggests.

Conclusion

So whether you’re a Photoshop whiz intent on getting stuck in or a novice user poised to make the most of the fantastic pre-loaded tutorials, we can wholeheartedly recommend the Photoshop Touch app to satiate your mobile imaging appetite.